THE LINGUISTICS, NEUROLOGY, AND POLITICS OF PHONICS - PART 6 pptx

91 NEUROIMAGING AND THE IMAGE OF PHONICS distraction. Nowhere else in science is the theory no more advanced than the tools used to study it. For those interested in microprocesses, neuroimaging is truly a fascinat- ing technique, one whose inherent limitations are the mirror image of its virtues, curiously similar in this way to human nature. But for those who are also interested in macroprocesses, its inherent limitations render it a purely subordinate, ancillary technique, to be judged against reading that is, indeed, simply and broadly studied. III Part RECLAIMING THE SCIENCE OF PHONICS By that hid way my guide and I withal, Back to the lit world from the darkened dens Toiled upward, caring for no rest at all, He first, I following; till my straining sense Glimpsed the bright burden of the heavenly cars Through a round hole; by this we climbed, and thence Came forth, to look once more upon the stars. —Dante (1949, pp. 288-289) Chapter 8 Three Definitions of Phonics The centerpiece of neophonics, its alleged scientific raison d'etre, is the alphabetic principle. Though described as a principle that connects letters of the alphabet with sounds of the spoken language, the alphabetic principle actually underlies three distinct ways of defining and understanding phonics: (a) as an abstract system of rules that converts letters to sounds, which may or may not be known (epistemology); (b) as a system of rules that must be learned in order to become known (psychology); and (c) as a system of rules that must be taught in order to become learned (pedagogy). Despite being interrelated, these are conceptually and empirically distinct notions. It may be possible to characterize some abstract cognitive system by identifying its properties and governing principles, without in any way implying that the system needs to be either learned or taught. It may be present, for example, as innate knowledge, perhaps in an immature form requiring exposure to a sufficiently rich environment in order to grow. This, in fact, is the philosophical understanding of Chomskyan grammatical systems (Chomsky, 1965, 1975). We may be able to characterize some abstract cognitive system, and even argue compellingly that it does not develop from an innate endowment, but must rather be learned in order for it to become known. But this does not entail that it must be taught in order to be learned. Again, appropriate exposure to the system, or its real-life manifestations, may trigger ordinary learning mechanisms that promote its acquisition. Finally, we may be able to characterize some abstract cognitive system, and argue compellingly that it is not innate, and furthermore, that the only 95 96 CHAPTER 8 way to learn it is for it to be explicitly taught. Clearly, these are three distinct empirical scenarios. Though distinct, however, the three scenarios are hierarchically interrelated. Obviously, the existence of the abstract cognitive system must be assumed in order to validly argue that it must be learned, or both learned and taught. And, just as obviously, if it does not need to be learned, it certainly does not need to be taught. These three scenarios underlie the real intent and meaning of Lyon's (Testimony of G. ReidLyon, 1997, par. 11) assertion that the alphabetic principle, the systematic connection between the letters of the alphabet and the sounds of speech, is "non-negotiable." The principle, which identifies an abstract system, operates purely at the level of epistemology. The funda- mental claim of the neophonics community is that letter-sound relationships must be known in order for someone to be a reader. But by itself, this says nothing one way or the other about whether it needs to be learned or taught. These are empirical questions, and represent supplemental claims that are not part of the actual formulation of the alphabetic principle. But Lyon (Testimony of G. Reid Lyon, 1997) extended the notion of nonnegotiability of the alphabetic principle from epistemology to psychology and pedagogy. He asserted that letter-sound relationships must not only be known in order for someone to be a competent reader, but, in addi- tion, they must be learned in order to be known, and taught in order to be learned. And the argument for doing this is based on the premise of the supposed "unnaturalness" of both the alphabetic principle and learning to read. Thus, in order to make the case that phonological processing must be explicity and directly taught, Lyon (1998) argued that it cannot be acquired naturally: Programmatic research over the past 35 years has not supported the view that reading development reflects a natural process—that children learn to read as they learn to speak, through natural exposure to a literate environment. In- deed, researchers have established that certain aspects of learning to read are highly unnatural. Consider the linguistic gymnastics involved in recovering phonemes from speech and applying them to letters and letter patterns. Un- like learning to speak, beginning readers must appreciate consciously what the symbols stand for in the writing system they learn. . . . Unfortunately for beginning readers, written alphabetic symbols are arbitrary and are created differently in different languages to represent spoken language elements that are themselves abstract. If learning to read were natural, there would not exist the substantial number of cultures that have yet to develop a written language, despite having a rich oral language. And, if learning to read unfolds naturally, why does our literate society have so many youngsters and adults who are illiterate? (p. 16) 97 THREE DEFINITIONS OF PHONICS Thus, for Lyon (1998), there are at least two aspects of learning to read that demonstrate its unnatural character, and that thereby necessitate formal instruction. The first is phonemic awareness, the notion that skilled readers must be conscious of the component sounds of words, in order, ul- timately, to connect them to letters of the printed form. The development of such conscious knowledge is not a natural phenomenon, and must be explicitly taught. The second is the alphabetic writing system itself, which is a late human invention that has found its way into many, though not all, cultures. Lyon (1998) offered an indictment of advocates of natural reading development: Despite strong evidence to the contrary, many educators and researchers maintain the perspective that reading is an almost instinctive, natural process. They believe that explicit instruction in phoneme awareness, phonics, struc- tural analysis, and reading comprehension strategies is unnecessary because oral language skills provide the reader with a meaning-based structure for the decoding and recognition of unfamiliar words. (p. 16) Further, quoting researcher Keith Stanovich, he impugned the scholarly integrity of meaning-centered researchers: "The idea that learning to read is just like learning to speak is accepted by no responsible linguist, psycholo- gist, or cognitive scientist in the research community" (p. 16). The kindest interpretation of Lyon's (1998) resort to Stanovich's gratu- itous opinion is that he holds descriptive, nonexperimental research to be insufficiently "trustworthy," so that those who advocate such untrustworthy research must not be "responsible." But even the advocacy of untrustworthy research should warrant nothing more than a critique of the empirical and research claims. A willingness to jab at the integrity of meaning-centered reading researchers must be a reflection of something more than the scientific issues. For example, it may reflect a defensiveness against the potent threat that meaning-centered research poses to the experimentalist's paradigm and the associated political agenda of neophonics. It may represent a comment intended to intimidate those teachers who find themselves sympathetic to meaning-centered reading theory and practice. Indeed, when one consid- ers neophonics as a legally mandated paradigm, that is, as a political program, then opponents must be cleared from the scene in order to minimize political obstacles that stand in its way. The tactics used to clear away political opponents are, unfortunately, not the same as those used to debate mere scientific adversaries. The essential correctness of this way of understanding Stanovich's and Lyon's (1998) charge of irresponsibility against meaning-centered reading 98 CHAPTER 8 researchers can be appreciated by considering that meaning-centered reading enjoys vast support among classroom teachers. In Chapter 1, for example, it was pointed out that the 70,000-member National Council of Teachers of English has taken a position in its favor, and against the position of the NICHD, regarding letter-sound decoding as holding no privi- leged position in either the theory or practice of reading. The notion of natural reading development is a real and potent threat to advocates of neophonics, because it strongly suggests that, instead of over- whelming our classrooms with direct instruction of phonics, and perhaps wasting billions of dollars on irrelevant phonics materials, we focus on cre- ating social conditions that help promote this natural development. But this, in turn, demands a reconsideration of our nation's political and eco- nomic priorities, because it will certainly include the view that poverty itself, in the setting of extreme discrepancies between the rich and the poor, is the primary crisis from which illiteracy and other social ills follow. Con- fronting illiteracy will mean confronting the causes of poverty, and more equitably distributing society's wealth. Apart from these political considerations, though, Lyon and Stanovich (Lyon, 1998) appear to not understand the meaning-centered view of learning to read. There is, in principle, no necessary conflict between a naturalistic understanding of learning to read and a role for some type of direct instruction. For example, just as there may be a neurologically based "critical stage" for learning to speak (Lenneberg, 1967), past which learning perhaps becomes unnatural and difficult, so too might there be a critical stage for learning to read naturally, past which some type of instruction may be necessary. But this is an empirical issue, not yet on the NICHD's reading research agenda. Indeed, the NICHD hints at a recognition of the comparability between learning to speak and learning to read, in terms of there being such a critical stage. The NICHD has repeatedly emphasized that children who fail to learn how to read past the age of 9 are destined to remain nonreaders. "We have also learned that if we delay intervention until nine years of age (the time that most children with reading difficulties receive services), approxi- mately 75% of the children will continue to have difficulties learning to read throughout high school," testified Lyon (Testimony of G. Reid Lyon, 1998, par. 30). "Failure to develop basic reading skills by age nine predicts a lifetime of illiteracy," he testified later (Testimony of G. Reid Lyon, 2001, par. 10). This has become a matter of such urgency to the NICHD, that a focus of high priority is on identifying "children at risk" at as young an age as possible, in order to not lose any precious years when they could be enrolled in the proper phonological processing program. This urgency has been com- municated to an accommodating and invertebrate popular press, which has been doing its part to promote the NICHD agenda. Thus, we have The Balti- 99 THREE DEFINITIONS OF PHONICS more Sun's and The Los Angeles Times' regularly appearing section entitled "Reading by Nine." But observe that the NICHD, on this view, is putting the cart way before the horse. The notion that learning to read qualitatively changes by age 9 should immediately ring a bell that we may very well be dealing with a neurologically based critical stage phenomenon. Indeed, the NICHD has no other explanation for the age-9 phenomenon. Yet, if this is truly what we are dealing with, then programs that promote natural reading development should be put in place as early as possible, with direct instruction being considered for older children, not the other way around. The early measures would include maximizing real reading time in the classroom, en- riching the classroom environment with authentic print, and immersing children in written language activities that are functional and meaningful. Proponents of explicit phonics instruction typically argue that, because written alphabets are artificial technologies, not natural systems like oral language, they must be explicitly taught. But again there is no compelling basis for this logic. Flat surfaces such as wooden floors and paved sidewalks are unnatural. Does that mean that children must be taught how to walk on such surfaces, whereas they will learn to walk naturally if placed on pristine, rocky fields? The absurdity of this position becomes apparent with the observation that the artificial technology of flat surfaces probably makes learning to walk easier. Perhaps alphabetic writing systems are the flat surfaces of language, rendering the development of linguistic competence potentially simpler. Lack of timely exposure, not the technology itself, may be the cul- prit in certain types of reading problems, but this too is an empirical, not a purely logical, problem. Much of this, of course, remains speculative, but clearly points to the need to study the matter further. There is also no contradiction between claiming that learning to read is natural and acknowledging the existence of nonliterate cultures and illiterate individuals in literate cultures. Certainly, no one disputes the notion that learning spoken language is natural, but this naturalness does not mean that learning will occur in the absence of the proper environmental exposure. When a biologically normal child is prevented from being exposed to, and interacting with, spoken language, the latter will simply not develop naturally, as unfortunate cases like Genie amply demonstrate (Curtiss, 1977). Physical growth occurs naturally, as long as it is exposed to the proper nutritional media. French is learned naturally, as long as you are exposed to it at the proper age. Likewise, no advocate of natural reading development has ever claimed that learning to read will arise spontaneously without proper environmental exposure. The phenomenon of illiteracy within a literate culture simply means that some children in that culture lack adequate access to environmental print and written language. The argument that a naturalistic view of 100 CHAPTER 8 reading entails the view that all cultures should have a written language is simply absurd. The only claim made by advocates of naturalistic learning is that if a written language has been developed by the culture, and if an individual has the proper exposure to it, then reading will be learned naturally. And, finally, no advocate of meaning-centered reading and its naturalistic corollaries have ever claimed that there is no role for phonics in the theory and practice of reading. As the NCTE position paper (February, 1999) eloquently stated, letter-sound relationships are one of a number of re- sources available to readers in their interaction with written text as they at- tempt to construct meaning. When prompted by the reader's own negotia- tion of the text, a question regarding a letter-sound connection may be an entirely appropriate, and individualized, opportunity for instruction. The neophonics panoply of illogic and confusion regarding the psychology and pedagogy of phonics is unfortunately not compensated for by any great insight about the system of phonics itself, other than to declare, without discussion, that it is a system, or that it is "elegant." In fact, some of the research reports used in the NRP meta-analysis show just how poorly thought through their notion of phonics actually is. By not investigating and studying their own subject matter, they mix together heterogeneous notions of phonics, and wind up comparing apples and oranges. For example, in two of the research articles included in the NRP meta- analysis, Foorman and her coauthors (Foorman et al., 1991; Haskel et al., 1992) used a set of 60 stimulus words to test the effectiveness of letter-sound instruction on children's oral reading accuracy. The words were described as having either "regular" or "exceptional" spellings, but these notions were nowhere defined in the articles. In trying to make sense of these terms, I asked why Foorman (Foorman et al., 1991; Haskel et al., 1992) characterized the 60 words the way she did (Strauss, 2003). For example, the word phase was listed as an exception. It cannot be on the basis of the voiced [z] pronunciation of the letter s, because hose, with the same [z] pronunciation, is labeled as regular. It cannot be on the basis of having a silent e, since rate and fate are regular. It can only be because of the initial ph. But what is the problem with this? I conjectured that the phonics rule turning ph into [f] is one in which the resulting sound derives from neither of the two letters in the digraph, because p generally becomes [p] and h generally becomes [h]. But Foorman listed share as regular, and sh exhibits this exact formal behavior, in which the pronunciation is neither [s] nor [h]. In response to this critique, Foorman et al. (2003) replied as follows: The exceptional words represent inconsistencies in sound/spelling mapping rather than the letter/sound correspondences to which Strauss refers. For example, Strauss correctly points to the regularity of the ph to /f/ correspon- 101 THREE DEFINITIONS OF PHONICS dence. However, the /f/ to ph mapping is less predictable because of the more frequent representation of /f/ by f. (p. 719) But this immediately undermines the entire NRP meta-analysis project for phonics, because we now learn that the NRP was aware of the existence of different types of correspondences, yet we never find out whether the pooled studies were assessed along this parameter. Did all of the studies in- terrogate children with a sound-letter corpus of test stimuli, or did some use a letter-sound corpus? If the collection was heterogeneous, then there is a serious problem with pooling them together for a meta-analysis, because what counts as regular in a sound-letter system may not be regular in a letter-sound system, and likewise for exception words. In other words, they are qualitatively distinct types of correspondence systems, so the find- ings on studies of one do not automatically carry over to the other. Here is how the difference shows itself. The word comb is exceptional in Foorman's (Foorman et al., 1991; Haskel et al., 1992) sound-letter system, presumably because mb is not the usual way to spell the sound [m]. But final mb is always pronounced [m]—there are no exceptions to this (bomb, dumb, lamb, limb)—so it is thoroughly regular from a letter-sound perspective. The word hose is regular in Foorman's (Foorman et al., 1991; Haskel et al., 1992) system. But is s the "more frequent" spelling of the sound [z], rather than z itself? It certainly is not more frequent in word-initial position, as is obvious with examples like zany, zip, and zoo. So suppose we allow the frequency issue to apply to more restrictive alphabetic contexts. Then we can say that s is (perhaps) more frequent between vowels in single-syllable words with a final, silent e, as in chose, rose, muse, and ruse. But there are also words such as base, close (adverb), dose, and house. Or consider a word such as wind (a stormy wind). This must be regular on Foorman's (Foorman et al., 1991; Haskel et al., 1992) spelling-sound ac- count, because the more frequent spelling of the short [I] sound is with the letter i. But this word is actually an exception in the system of letter-sound rules, because the letter i in single-syllable words ending in ind is more fre- quently pronounced [ay]: bind, find, grind, hind, kind, mind, rind, and wind (wind a wristwatch). Therefore, wind (a stormy wind) is regular in a sound- letter system and exceptional in a letter-sound system. Taken together, this means that the sound-letter system and the letter- sound system for English are not the same. They have distinct classes of regular and exception words. Therefore, studies such as Foorman's (Foorman et al., 1991; Haskel et al., 1992) that use the sound-letter system represent a specific type of phonics study, and cannot be legitimately regarded as a generalizable type of phonics study without further research into the matter. As far as I know, this has not been done. Clearly, this is one of the major theoretical flaws of the NRP meta-analysis. 102 CHAPTER 8 Indeed, the entire NRP meta-analysis should be scrutinized for just what conception of correspondence systems was used in each of the pooled studies. If they were a heterogeneous gemisch of incomparable conceptions, letter-sound in one, sound-letter in another, mixed letter-sound and sound- letter in another, and perhaps even something altogether different in still another, then the NRP meta-analysis is scientifically meaningless. We simply do not know what it is about, no matter how loudly its sponsors might yell that it is a meta-analysis of phonics. So, a rather remarkable aspect of neophonics is that, despite its self- described trustworthiness, it fails to be convincing in every important way— in epistemology, psychology, and pedagogy. There is, indeed, not even a scientific investigation of the alphabetic principle itself, its "nonnegotiable" law. Rather, the alphabetic principle is merely an article of faith, and stands as the subject matter of no empirical investigation whatsoever, neither in terms of what the letter-sound relationships actually are, nor in the logical organization of these relationships. Traditionally accepted correspondences are merely assumed, as if simplifications made for purposes of eas- ing classroom instruction and writing phonics textbooks represent some type of scientific hypothesis. This is pseudoscience, not science, and pseu- dophonics, not scientific phonics. The mere assertion of being "systematic" begs every single important question about phonics. Is the system that relates letters and sounds profoundly simple, profoundly complex, or somewhere in between? Is it learn- able by known mechanisms of knowledge acquisition and development? Is it teachable in its unsimplified form, or must we distort it, perhaps beyond recognition, in order to make it classroom friendly? What principles characterize its systematicity? These questions are crucial and need to be addressed, because strong claims are being made about the role the system plays in becoming a reader. What if we discover a level of complexity that challenges teachabil- ity? What if we discover aspects of letter-sound connections that are medi- ated by something other than the alphabetic principle, such as the logo- graphic principle? Thus, the necessary empirical investigation of letter-sound relationships, when performed with an eye toward understanding the system that underlies them, takes neophonics seriously on its own terms, in an area that is central ("nonnegotiable") to its own work, but which it has utterly ignored. Taking on this empirical task, in which letter-sound relationships are inves- tigated independently of their potential role in learning and teaching, in order to understand what it is that may need to be learned or taught, is tantamount to reclaiming the science of phonics from its neophonics obfuscation. An empirical analysis of letter-sound relationships is a theoretical pre- requisite to any claims about its role in reading. Simply stated, we should [...]... place to begin, because they implicitly express certain aspects of phonics as a system Bloomfield's examples included the words pin,nip, pit,tip, tin, nit, dip, din, dim, and mid, and the pronounceab 105 1 06 CHAPTER9 nonwords pid, nin, pim, mip, nid, nim, and mim The phonics rules that un derlie the letter-sound connections in these words and nonwords are: The The The The The The letter letter letter... how phonics rules interact Do the rules apply simultaneously or in a sequence? Does the application of one rule block the application of another? Do the rules start at the beginning of the word and work their way east, or perhaps at the end of the word and work their way west? In investigating such questions, we may discover inter esting, general principles The principles would represent properties of. .. application of the default rule, and producing the desired [haew] For the word row, the nondefault rule does not apply, leaving the default rule free to apply, producing the de sired pronunciation [row] There is now an immediate explanation for the existence of pairs such as bow [baew ]-[ bow] and sow [saew ]-[ sow] In the first member of the pair the optional nondefault rule applies, whereas in the latter, the. .. short of the ideal English, together with French, are remarkable among European languages for the extent to which their spelling-systems depart from the principle of one-to-one correspon dence between the sequence of segment-types that occur in a spoken utter ance and the sequence of graphemes which appear in its written equivalent Because of this departure from the ideal, the spelling reformers, according... address the properties of the presumed system For example, Venezky's (1999) rela tional and marking functions operate at the level of the system, even though they are properties of individual rules, because they represent two general categories, one of which any particular phonics rule must fall into And their empirical character is demonstrated in the observation that they do not exhaust the logically... pronounced [I] The systematicity of Bloomfield's (1942/1 961 ) phonics lies in the observa tion that the pronunciation of any word or nonword is derived entirely from the pronunciation of each component letter, with variations occurring only according to the permutations of the letters themselves Another way of stat ing this is that the phonics rules do not refer to specific words, nor to strings of letters,... hard, as in guild and plague, whereas it may be soft otherwise, as in gin and page Venezky's (1999) work expresses one aspect of the formal heterogeneity of phonics rules, and is based on an empirical observation about word spell ings and corresponding sounds Someone interested in the psychology of phonics could devise experiments that tested the sensitivity of subjects to the relational-marking distinction... 194) The loss of the "beauty" of traditional spelling would be made up for by its new "rationality," thus justifying changing the spellings of conquer and pas sionate, for example, to konker and pashunut But everyone knows that real written English simply does not work ac cording to the reformer's ideal of one-letter-one-sound and one-sound-oneletter correspondences So, from an inquisitive and scientific... unlike ma and pa, these are unrep resentative of similarly spelled words in which the letter o does receive its default pronunciation, such as Bo, go, lo, no, and so In fact, the existence of the word do, as in do, re, mi, shows that the phonics rule for the verb do ap plies to the word itself, rather than the letter sequence d-o Therefore, we need to have rules that idiosyncratically apply to the full... principle, the nondefault rule takes precedence, and blocks the application of the default rule, thereby producing the desired pronunciations [ma] and [pa] 112 CHAPTER 9 The words do and to receive their correct pronunciations because the rules "in the word do, letter o is pronounced [uw]" and "in the word to, let ter o is pronounced [uw]" take precedence over, and block, "letter o is pro nounced [ow]," thereby . favor, and against the position of the NICHD, regarding letter-sound decoding as holding no privi- leged position in either the theory or practice of reading. The notion of . naturally. And, finally, no advocate of meaning-centered reading and its naturalistic corollaries have ever claimed that there is no role for phonics in the theory and practice of . sound- letter system and exceptional in a letter-sound system. Taken together, this means that the sound-letter system and the letter- sound system for English are not the same. They

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